Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.
Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood with the prediction for Great Maudgalyāyana, we open Chapter 7: The Parable of a Magic City with a story that begins countless, limitless, inconceivable, asaṃkhya number of kalpas ago.
The Buddha said to the Bhikṣus:
“A countless, limitless, inconceivable, asaṃkhya number of kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. His world was called Well-Composed; and the kalpa in which he became that Buddha, Great-Form.
“Bhikṣus! It is a very long time since that Buddha passed away. Suppose someone smashed all the earth-particles of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds into ink-powder. Then he went to the east[, carrying the ink-powder with him]. He inked a dot as large as a particle of dust [with that ink-powder] on the world at a distance of one thousand worlds from his world. Then he went again and repeated the inking of a dot on the world at every distance of one thousand worlds until the ink-powder was exhausted. What do you think of this? Do you think that any mathematician or any disciple of a mathematician could count the number of the worlds [he went through]?”
“No, we do not, World-Honored One!”
“Bhikṣus! Now all the worlds he went through, whether they were inked or not, were smashed into dust. The number of the kalpas which have elapsed since that Buddha passed away is many hundreds of thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas larger than the number of the particles of the dust thus produced. Yet I remember [the extinction of] that Buddha by my power of insight as vividly as if he had passed away today.”
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
According to my remembrance,
There lived a Buddha, an Honorable Biped,
Called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence,
Countless kalpas ago.Suppose someone smashed
All the earth-particles
Of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds
Into ink-powder.He went, [carrying the ink-powder with him,]
And inked a dot as large as a particle of dust
On the world at a distance of one thousand worlds.
He repeated the inking until the ink-powder was exhausted.Suppose the worlds
Through which he went,
Whether they were inked or not,
Were smashed into dust.It is innumerable• kalpas,
More than the number
Of the particles of dust thus produced,
Since that Buddha passed away.I remember the extinction of that Buddha
As vividly as if he had passed away just now,
By my unhindered wisdom; I also remember
The Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas who lived [with him].Bhikṣus, know this!
My wisdom is pure, wonderful,
Free from āsravas and from hindrance.
I know those who lived innumerable kalpas ago.